6 Qualities of a Good Domain Name

by Joseph Nyamache

Choosing a good domain name is crucial to the success or failure of your business. You may wonder how something so small and slight could have an impact on your business, but the best way to compare this is to think about how important location is to an offline business? If you do not have a good location, you are likely not going to get many visitors. The same holds true for a good domain name as well.

Here, you will discover the six qualities that a good domain name must have to ensure maximum success.

1.) Memorable

A good domain name must be memorable. Yes, we have the option of bookmarking a site that we enjoy; however, the hard truth is that many people do not take advantage of bookmarking. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that your domain name is one that is easy to remember and makes an impact. It should be easy, memorable, and straight forward.


Avoid complexity and it is usually a good idea to avoid initials in most cases. The only exception to this rule would be if the letters represented the website name or business and was still easy to remember.

2.) Short and Sweet

Twenty characters is the maximum that you should use for a good domain name, ten is even better. A long and complicated domain name is not going to help you. Your best bet is to keep it short and sweet. A great domain name is less than ten characters; a good domain name is less than twenty characters. A bad domain name goes over twenty characters.

3.) Be Choosy On Your Extension

There are several domain extensions available to you such as .com, .net, .org, .tv, .info, .gov and so on. However, some of these work better than others and are more memorable at the same time. It is important to understand that some extensions also have restrictions such as .gov is reserved specifically for government websites. The .com domain name extension is the best by far, because it is the most widely used.

The .net extension is the second best, but be prepared most people will type .com before they will .net if they cannot remember which extension you use. The type of extension you use might also have a bearing on the type of website. Some people have come to expect certain things when a particular extension. For example, .org is typically used by not-for-profit organization and educational websites. The .info extensions are generally used for informational websites.

4.) Spelling Means Everything

Having a difficult to spell domain name could cause you some trouble. Again, many do not even make use of bookmarks; therefore, if your domain name is hard to spell, they may end up at a competitor's website.


A good domain name contains only words that are easy to pronounce, have a good combination of words or letters that are used in every day language, and does not contain foreign words that may be difficult to non-native speakers.

5.) Tells a Story

A good domain name should be descriptive and tell a story. In other words, when your visitors, customers, or potential customers see your domain name they should instantly be able to tell what they are going to find. For instance, if it is your business, a business name is good.

6.) Avoid Fancy Symbols

It is never a good idea to use numbers or hyphens within your domain name. Even if your domain name is memorable, many people will not pay attention to the symbols, which could lead them to someone else's website.

About the Author
Joseph Nyamache has the worst domain name. Learn not to make the same mistakes at expired domain names blog.

Increase Your S.E. Rankings With a Simple Redirect!

by Jude LaCour

Can a simple URL redirect really lower your search engine rankings? Yes, it can. In fact, your competitors can easily use this Achilles' heel to overtake you. However, you can safeguard your website now!

Merging, renaming, and especially moving web pages and subsequently, web addresses are commonplace. While the methods of redirecting URLs are many, there is only a single right way to make it search engine friendly. The most efficient and effective search engine friendly method is 301 Redirects.

Canonical Domains & the Problem with Duplicate Content

Canonical domains, also called subdomains, allow you to have other domains based off of your primary domain. They are part of the domain name system (DNS). An example is info.yourwebsite.com where 'info" is a subdomain of the domain 'yourwebsite.com'. Here, the DNS entry for the domain yourwebsite.com points to a specific IP address on a server.

Canonical domains serve as aliases to domain names. Again, info.yourwebsite.com points to the same IP address as yourwebsite.com since it does share the same host server (where you upload your website files). Other possible canonical domains of yourwebsite.com are email.yourwebsite.com, store.yourwebsite.com, and of course, www.yourwebsite.com.

These subdomains can also be used as individual websites. Yahoo, for example, uses subdomains for their different services like mail.yahoo.com, messenger.yahoo.com, and more. These subdomains forward to another location.

So what is the dilemma? Well, to both the DNS system and us, http://www.yourwebsite.com and http://yourwebsite.com bring up the same web site since they are the same. Unfortunately, to search engines, they aren't the same since they treat subdomains are entirely different websites but with duplicate content. Therefore, they will be ranked lower since search engines penalize for duplicate content.

Beware of Your Competitors & 301 Sabotage

Your competitors for search engine ranking can easily exploit the problem above. They can find further instances on your website that use www and non-www links. They can link these problem spots, again unintentional duplicate content, to further reduce your rankings. This is known as 301 Sabotage.

How to Protect Your Website & Ranking

The first step in protecting your website and ranking is to see if your website needs protection at all.

Step 1: Enter your website URL http://www.yourwebsite.com (replace 'yourwebsite.com' with your own domain).

Step 2: Watch the address bar to see if your destination is www.yourwebsite.com or yourwebsite.com. Keep the answer in mind.

Step 3: Now enter http://yourwebsite.com and see where you land.

After checking both http://www.yourwebsite.com and http://yourwebsite.com, did you land at the same URL (in this case either www.yourwebsite.com or yourwebsite.com)? If in both scenarios, you land at the same URL, you have no problems. As long as you land at the same place, it really does not matter how you got there.

For example, as long as www.google.com and google.com land on the google.com (without www), everything is fine. However, if you land on different pages but with the same content, your website is open (whether intentionally or not) to exploitation via 301 Sabotage. Don't worry, all you need to do is implement a 301 Redirect to protect your website and ranking.

How to Do 301 Redirection

The single correct method of redirecting your domain name to protect against 301 Sabotage and lowered search engine ranking is HTTP 301 (redirection header) or 301 Redirection.

HTTP Protocol is basically a set of headers that makes the Internet work. HTTP headers are seamless. Therefore, they are usually invisible to your website visitors. Yet they are a vital part of web server to web browser (IE, Netscape, FireFox, Safari, etc.) communication. Since they are exchanged before any web content, such as an HTML page, is sent to the browser, they are called headers. Basically, they appear at the head of the document.

Part of the standard HTTP headers control redirection. These are known as 3xx Headers since they are numbered from 300 and on (300, 301, 302, 303, and so on). In particular, the HTTP 301 header designates that a web page has been moved permanently. Another header usually immediately follows and communicates a new location that the web page has moved to.

Everyone (and everything) from website visitors to search engines now know that a web page or domain name is no longer in use. It also knows what the new location to be used is. Search engines, specifically, will automatically index the page as the same page.

While there are many techniques to do a 301 Redirection, some are best suited for forwarding entire websites and others for individual pages. The three ways to do a 301 Redirect include:

The PHP header() function for web server's that support PHP

The mod_rewrite function for Apache web servers

The built-in forwarding that your web host might provide

Before testing any of the 301 Redirection methods above, you should first clear your web browser's cache. This will allow you to see if it works or not. FireFox web browsers especially need to have the cache cleared or you will get an error message saying the URL Redirection limit has been reached.

Conclusion

As you have read, being proactive about problems that may lower your search engine ranking is not too difficult. Implementation of 301 Redirection is a simple and easy way to make sure your website and ranking is protected. In fact, 301 Redirection is the single correct way to address 301 Sabotage and other issues, whether intentional or not, that may threaten your search engine ranking.

To get further instructions, including actual code that can be used to create a 301 redirect, please visit my web site.

About this author

Author: Jude LaCour. Internet Marketing and Computer Forensic Consultant. Learn more at http://www.JudeLaCour.com

Targeting Niche Audiences - AOL's New Branding Strategy

By Scott Buresh

AOL, once considered a pioneer in internet technology, has fallen on hard times over the years, unable to devise an effective branding strategy. A failed merger with Time-Warner, a non-focus on search while Google built an empire (the AOL search engine eventually began serving up Google results on its portal site), and declining dial-up business are all contributing factors to the ongoing difficulties of AOL and its search engine.

However, AOL seems to have a new branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine, which would revamp its services and target specific niches. And while many "analysts" claim that it is already a failure before the results are in, it is too soon to tell how this will affect AOL and the search engine that bears its name. Personally, I think it's a smart play for the company - and something that bears watching. If the branding strategy is successful, another huge company may want to follow AOL's example.

You see, AOL understands that the AOL search engine and its other services are not a brand beloved by many. The AOL search engine and AOL itself are seen as somewhat ancient, old school, 56k, etc. Nightmare stories about its online services are not in short supply. I haven't done any specific studies on this, but in my circle of friends and business acquaintances, people consider an AOL subscriber a little behind the times.

The point is (in my opinion) that the "AOL brand" itself has decreasing value and may actually have negative value if the specific sites that it owns or has recently purchased are brought in under an umbrella branding strategy. These sites include those catering toward everything from country music fans to moms sharing photos to guys trying to pick up women. In some cases, the niche sites do not even display their affiliation with AOL or its search engine (or if they do, it is not featured very prominently).

The logic behind this branding strategy is clear. First of all, the AOL search engine and portal weren't attracting new visitors. Secondly, the AOL search engine and brand itself are not particularly hip or fresh. Third, and probably most importantly, specific portal sites attract specific types of users, which are usually highly targeted, prompting a potential for more ad revenue (in theory).

Basically, the AOL portal has stopped trying to be all things to all people. Google is able to pull off the "all things to all people" approach primarily because it doesn't have issues with a branding strategy yet - in fact, the new vertical searches that it adds under the Google "branding umbrella" are augmented by implied hipness and coolness. However, as AOL has discovered, hipness usually has a shelf life. If people began to see Google as the huge corporation that it is now, rather than the uber-cool underdog, the company may not be able to keep this record up. There have already been some cracks in its veneer, although by and large, the Google brand is still very positive and powerful.

There is another company much bigger than AOL that suffers from much of the same problems (and in some cases, worse problems) than AOL does but still wants to take on Google head to head. I refer, of course, to Microsoft.

In terms of a brand, Microsoft is almost universally disliked. The monopoly issue may be one thing. The fact that it is seen as 'old school' may be another. Gates and Ballmer don't exactly have reputations as "nice guys," like Sergei and Larry do (the fact that it seems natural to refer to the former two by their last names and the latter two by the first may help illustrate this point). And the list goes on.

The bottom line is that I have a hard time seeing MSN.com gaining the kind of traction that Google has, simply because the brand is less than sexy. This means, of course, that any additional vertical search options that MSN adds to its site are bound to be appreciated only by the dwindling few who already swear by the portal.

AOL has decided that its branding strategy for the AOL search engine and niche sites is not nearly as important as the amount of traffic and ad revenue that the site commands. This is not uncommon in the publishing industry, where many different publications on many different topics may be owned by one large (but largely silent) entity. Many of these offline publications have moved online and are beginning to monetize their diverse base of websites. AOL seems to have a similar model and branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine and other niche sites.

If it works for AOL and its search engine, it could be the best possible branding strategy for Microsoft to follow. Lord knows Microsoft has the money. The company has already bought the ad networks that can service sites under its own new branding strategy. But if pride dictates that it keep everything under the MSN name or add a huge "brought to you by Microsoft" banner across the top of any popular online property that it decides to buy, MSN is, in my opinion, shooting itself in the foot.

I never said it was fair, but your brand and branding strategy can either be an asset, neutral, or a detriment. Microsoft has to realize that most people consider its brand to be in the neutral to detrimental range and that most people consider Google to be in the neutral to asset range (and that's probably being charitable). Microsoft should not try to compete with Google head to head without considering the disparities in the conceptions of their respective brands.

About The Author
Scott Buresh is the founder of Medium Blue, a search engine optimization company. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including MarketingProfs, ZDNet, SiteProNews, WebProNews, DarwinMag, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He was also a contributor to The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Atlantic, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue has local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world in 2006 and 2007 by PromotionWorld. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.

Turn Knowledge Into Sales: Discover Hidden Web-Profits

by Jerry Bader

Your company's collective knowledge and know-how is its greatest asset, not the products or services you offer; products and services are merely the means to implement your expertise. Your capacity to grow and prosper is dependent on your ability to effectively present your know-how in creative, informative, entertaining, understandable, and above all memorable ways.

To excite, inform, and motivate people by showing them how to get the most out of what you sell is where your profit potential lies. The way you present your expertise is how you will be remembered; it is the basis of the experience each client has when dealing with your company, and that experience is what will make or break you.

The Web-Experience Factor

There is plenty of excellent information around about website design, information architecture, search engine optimization, and even usability, but few Web-business articles deal with the experience factor. No matter how attractive, user friendly, or SEO perfect your website is, you are never going to convert visitors into a customers if they are turned-off by the experience you offer.

By providing your expertise and know-how with style and flair, you are telling visitors that you are prepared to help them maximize the benefits your product or service potentially delivers - a value-added benefit your competitors will find hard to counteract.

When so many products and services on the market are generic, interchangeable or widely available brands, the only thing that will differentiate you from everyone else is the knowledge and expertise you offer as a value-added perk.

The Paradox of Choice

'The Paradox of Choice' is a term coined by Swarthmore College Professor, Barry Schwartz, in a book by the same name. Everyone likes choice, this is obvious, and no one likes to feel they have no options. But when options become overwhelming, the ability to make a purchase decision is hindered. Too many choices generate a diminishing marginal utility and actually hinder conversion.

When you visit a website that offers a large quantity of similar products that serve the same basic purpose (cell phones, cameras, computers, televisions, guitars or just about anything else) each with a list of options and features that seem interchangeable and at the same time incompatible, the result is confusion and buying-paralysis. This is where your knowledge and expertise comes in.

If you invest in a video and/or audio presentation that explains who would benefit from each product and why one product is more appropriate for one customer than another, you are not just delivering a sales pitch, you are providing a welcome service that helps your visitor decide what is best for him or her. The result is a happier, more satisfied, better-informed customer.

Even more importantly, by helping your client decide what is the best purchase option, you are cementing your relationship with that customer, and when the time comes for an upgrade, replacement, or add-on, you will be the 'go-to' company, and not your competitor who offers nothing more than an online flee market.

How To Monetarize Knowledge

Depending on the nature of your business, you can market your expertise directly through the sale of online videos, DVDs, audio-casts, and white papers.

As an alternative, you can use your knowledge as an indirect sales tool. By providing professionally produced media at no cost, you enhance your reputation and attract interest in your company. For example, we provide over fifty articles, and dozens of videos on our site, explaining how best to use video and audio on the Web in order to brand Web-businesses and maximize profits.

A kind of hybrid solution would be to provide your video presentations at no-charge, but allow them to be monetarized by including a sponsor's ad at the beginning or end; or you can distribute them through one of the increasing number of video directories, or distribution networks that will add an advertising message to your content, and pay you for the privilege.

How To Turn Advertising Into Content

The idea of turning advertising into content leaves some people with a bad taste. Television commercials are a distinct form of communication separate from the programs you watch, and display ads in magazines and newspapers are separate and distinct from the editorial.

But now you have movies, where ad placement has become a significant force in funding and revenue creation for the producers. Are you watching a movie intended to entertain, or a two-hour advertisement for the latest cars, computers, and sports drink? One wonders if the latest blockbuster is merely a fifty million dollar ad for the upcoming Christmas toy-buying season?

The melding of advertising and content is already here; it's just a case of doing it honestly and creatively, making it worth watching. The Apple iPod commercials are basically sponsored music videos and are more entertaining and memorable than many hour-long programs, and they do it without any sales pitch.

Memorable Web Experiences Require Memorable Content

Web-content should grab your attention, be informative, instructive, interesting, entertaining, memorable, and even stimulating. It doesn't necessarily have to be all these things but it has to provide something more than just a sales pitch.

The actual material being presented is only part of the experience; it's the presentation of the material that makes it worth retaining. How you deliver content is a long-term marketing and branding strategy.

Most advertising tends to be a short-term tactic demanding continuous promotion with short-term gains; it is most often heavy-handed and hype-laden, tending to exaggerate claims, disrupt attention, and irritate the audience: an approach that often leads to a quick exit from a website, even when that website contains exactly what the visitor is looking for.

Sales pitches produce a natural resistance, while knowledge-based content and expert advice creates natural curiosity and confidence in the provider.

Web-video delivers information and subtext with nuance and meaning, as well as emotional and rational justification. Professionally produced video content communicates your expertise and your willingness to maximize your client's return from purchasing your product or service, and that will make you the market leader.

About Us

People ask, "What do you do?" You could say we inform, enlighten, innovate, and create; you could also say we deliver our clients' marketing messages in memorable ways using video, audio, webmedia campaigns and websites; all created in-house from concept to implementation, from graphic and motion design to Web-design, from script writing to video-production to post-production, from music composition to signature sound design.

What do we do? We motivate action by speaking to your audience's real needs. We tell your story so your brand, your message, embeds in the minds of your clients. We are corporate storytellers.

Top Google in Record Time in 2 Simple Steps!

By Michael Small

I got into search engine optimization back in 1998. It sure has changed a lot since then. Back in the day you could use invisible text, load keywords to the point of overflowing and fill META tags with anything even close to what you had on your page. And you could do well on Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista; all the biggies. Not anymore.

Today SEO is about a 75% / 25% split between links and content, with inbound links being the most important thing. Especially on Google. When all is said and done, you can get to the top of Google in just two simple steps. Seriously. I've done it hundreds of times and it's easier than you'd imagine.

Step 1: Develop Great Content

Writing great SEO content is a snap if you follow this simple 5 step formula...

1.) Write naturally as if speaking with a friend. Record yourself actually speaking to a friend about the topic of your Web page and it will all come together automatically.

2.) Limit each page to 2 to 3 keywords or keyword phrases.

3.) Mention each keyword no more than 4 times per page and split the usage somewhat equally between paragraphs. Two mentions of your most important keyword in the first paragraph is the only real exception. And be sure you mention each toward the end of the page to show overall consistency and topic authenticity.

4.) Try to incorporate the first mention of each keyword into hyperlink anchor text. The link should lead to another page of your site. (Note: The keyword would then be the clickable text leading to your other page.)

5.) Have between 150 and 250 words of text per keyword. So if you have 3 keywords on one page, you will have about 600 words on that page, in total.

That's the quick and dirty SEO content writers course. And believe me, it works!

Step 2: Link Like the Pros (Part 1; Strategize)

Linking is a bit more involved. The main thing to remember is that you want as many high quality, topic relevant links as you can get. And you want them all using the same exact URL since Google sees URLs that begin with "http://www" differently than links that begin with just "www". In other words, even if you have 200 links to your page, if they are split between URL formats, you are not getting full credít for the links.

And forget all that stuff about links to the homepage being "a must." Sure, having inbound links go to your homepage is great but Google has smartened up. They figure your site overall is probably not that great if nobody bothers linking to your actual content pages. While it's true that Google ranks pages rather than sites, they do still base each of your page's worth on its supporting pages.

I won't bore you with a bunch of techno babble. In short, if you keep this in mind, you'll always be ahead of the game:

1.) Inbound links should be from pages containing relevant content of a similar nature.

2.) Links to your pages from outside pages with high Google PageRank (GPR) are most desirable. (Note: GPR is NOT the page's position on Google. It is a value, from 1 to 10, that Google assigns to all Webpages.)

3.) Links from (not to) a homepage are typically most valuable, unless they have a higher GPR page to link from. Focus on the GPR. If you use software like that mentioned below, it will do all this automatically. If you do it all manually, get the free Google Toolbar. GPR is shown for every page (that has any) on the Internet.

4.) Inbound links to your pages should feature your keyword as the anchor text triggering the hyperlink (keyword is the clickable part leading to your page.)

5.) Do NOT use generic text for your link's surrounding content. Make the sentence as relevant as possible.

6.) Use as many variations of your link's surrounding content as possible so the search engines don't view your inbound links as duplicate content.

Step 2: Link Like the Pros (Part 2; Do It)

As far as actually getting great links, avoid the automated script based reciprocal link services. A lot of these services link your pages to "gray barred" pages, which means your site can get kicked off Google as well. And to be honest, reciprocal links are not nearly as valuable to Google as they once were, especially the junk link pages most of these services create.

If you want the "set it and forget it" convenience of a linking service, but not the problems I just mentioned, you might want to try one like 3-WayLinks.com. Although I'm not a fan of any linking service, this one is the best I've come across so far. They set it up so your page links to another, which links to a third, which links to you. There is no direct reciprocal beeline back to your page and each link is counted as a one way inbound link by Google, which is the most valuable type of link.

Of course, natural linking is the way to go whenever possible. Google LOVES links that are part of page content (see the anchor text notes above.) And getting great links like this is easier than ever with the right software so don't sweat the time or effort. Both are minimal.

The product a lot of SEO pros use (myself included) is SEO Elite. It works great as both a full function link building tool and ranking checker for all major search engines. Even if you don't need the app, take advantage of the free videos on the site. They explain special linking considerations, like special reserved commands such as "allinanchor" and how to find Google "Authority sites." You can still benefit from the information, even without the tool.

Big Tip: When approaching other sites for links, try to get your link as anchor text in the actual page content, or a margin. Also do their link that way and explain the benefits and how much Google loves this type of natural content linking.

So there you have it; everything you need to get your pages on top of Google in record time. Best of luck. You'll do great!

About The Author
Mike Small is a ten year veteran SEO specialist with thousands of top search engine rankings to his credít. He is the author of seven SEO books and founder of SEOpartner.com .